


Catch a Glimpse of Gold Through His Skin

by reginalds



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginalds/pseuds/reginalds
Summary: The poster reads, from the top:Times When it is Okay to Interrupt Mr. Malkin:1.)	Hitler invades Russia2.)	Fire3.)	German U-boat spotted in the Allegheny4.)	Sidney Crosby walks in the room





	Catch a Glimpse of Gold Through His Skin

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly wasn’t sure where I was going with this for a long time, but it kept unspooling and unspooling, and turned into this. I really hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Title from “Army” by BOY.

Like so many things in Evgeni’s life, it’s Tanger’s fault when he and Sidney Crosby end up on the 8 o’clock news.

He’d made the poster as a joke, his second year as a teacher in Pittsburgh. His students had been a difficult mixture of insubordinate and afraid of him, and he’d wanted to show them that he had a sense of humor, but also that his word was law in the classroom.

It’s not a bad poster, all things considered. Miss Xu, who teaches eleventh and twelfth grade Chinese, lent him a few tubes of glitter glue, and he’d used the color printer in the teacher’s lounge to print out a picture of #87.

It reads, from the top:

**Times When it is Okay to Interrupt Mr. Malkin:**

  * **Hitler invades Russia**
  * **Fire**
  * **German U-boat spotted in the Allegheny**
  * **Sidney Crosby walks in the room**



He’d doodled a nifty little border of frowning emoticons and flames, and used some masking tape to stick the photo he’d printed of Sidney Crosby to the poster. It’s a nice photo. Crosby’s not even playing hockey in it, but he’s out on the ice in his jersey, his face creased in a big smile as he laughs with a teammate over some private joke. It’s one of the things Evgeni likes best in his classroom, and he has his grandfather’s Hero of the Soviet Union medal in a little plastic case on his desk.

The poster hangs in pride of place in the back of the classroom, right beside the smartboard Evgeni doesn’t know how to use. Tanger thinks it’s fucking hilarious.

He takes a picture of it one day in September, when school has only been in session for a few weeks, and Evgeni hasn’t banned him and his shenanigans from the AP European History classroom yet.

“Twitter is going to fucking love this,” Tanger says, and Evgeni has to shove him off of the desk he’s perched on and out of the classroom before his ninth graders arrive and he corrupts them.

“Go back to art classroom,” he calls, and rolls his eyes at the middle finger Tanger throws his way. “Go make pots, leave professionals alone.”

“Joke’s on you, we’re doing watercolors this week!” Tanger yells, and disappears around a corner in a flurry of students.

The problem is that people follow Tanger on Twitter. And not just nosy students and friends and vague acquaintances. A _lot_ of people follow Tanger on Twitter. It’s mostly women who think he’s hot, and men who think he’s stylish (Evgeni thinks they should all get their eyes checked), and hockey fans who like it when he livetweets games and gets so worked up he keysmashes in French.

Tanger tweets the photo with the caption: “#1 biggest #SidneyCrosby fan in Pittsburgh,” and Evgeni sees it when he checks his own Twitter feed that evening. He rolls his eyes and retweets it, and doesn’t think about it again.

Except the Pittsburgh Penguins official Twitter account catches wind of and retweets the picture a week later. And then Pascal Dupuis retweets it, and Nick Bonino does the same.

Two weeks after the Tanger tweets the photo, Evgeni is having a terrible day. He’s running on four hours of sleep, having spent most of the night watching Pittsburgh eke out a hard-fought, heart-pounding 4-3 win over the Bruins on overtime, and the rest of it doing the lesson planning he was distracted from by the game.

He doesn’t even notice anything strange until second period, when he ducks into the front office to pick up his mail, and Mrs. Bonner, the assistant principal, takes one look at him and _giggles_. Mrs. Bonner came to Pittsburgh off a decade teaching in public schools in low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx – she is as even-keeled as they come, and Evgeni stares at her as she apologizes and hurries off, looking flushed.

Things don’t get any better during his third period class, when he is thoroughly distracted from his discussion of the Treaty of Versailles, when Tanger presses his face up against his classroom door and laughs at him silently for approximately four minutes.

During lunch break, Evgeni ambushes Conor Sheary in the hallway outside the staff lounge. Sheary’s a good kid – a bright young thing fresh out of college, tasked with revamping their drama department – and he’s eager to prove himself, which means Evgeni takes ruthless advantage of his go-getter attitude, mostly to coerce him into going on coffee and McDonald’s runs when Evgeni can’t be bothered to go himself.

“Shearsy. What is happening,” he asks, grabbing him by the arm and looming just a little bit. Conor blinks, and he actually hesitates, which is how Evgeni knows it’s serious.

“Conor,” Evgeni says, pouting. “Why you not tell me?”

“I’m not supposed to!” Conor says, and flutters his hands wildly for a second, before looking at Evgeni and caving. “Okay, but it’s a surprise, so you still have to act surprised, okay?”

Evgeni frowns. “Not like surprises.”

“It’s a good surprise!” Conor says. “It’s the best surprise: it’s Sidney Crosby!”

Evgeni freezes. His face feels hot, and he blinks a couple of times, to make sure he’s heard correctly. “Sidney Crosby?”

“Yeah! The Pens saw Tanger’s tweet about your poster, and they got Crosby to come to the school and surprise you. We’re all supposed to act normal, and not tell you.” He smiles nervously at the look on Evgeni’s face. “I thought you liked Crosby?”

“I like on television, playing hockey!” Evgeni shouts, and Conor jumps. “Where Tanger? I need kill him.”

“Please don’t tell anyone I told you!” Conor whisper-shouts after him as he stomps down the hall.

Tanger is teaching a class of impressionable (and small, _so_ small, Evgeni’s not sure he was ever that small. Maybe for five minutes. When he was eight.) freshmen how to use a pottery wheel and Evgeni is unable to interrupt the class to choke him out.

He settles for glaring from the hallway and making threatening hand gestures when Tanger looks up and smirks at him, but the effect is somewhat lessened by the sea of fourteen-year olds between them.

He’s antsy all through his planning period, rattling a ball point pen against the desk until it explodes and gets all over his hands, the right leg of his slacks, and the works cited he’d been trying to grade.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit, fuck.”

His slacks are a lost cause, but they’re made of navy fabric, and he hopes that the large stain won’t be noticeable under the fluorescent lights. “On all days,” he mutters, kicking the traitorous ball point into the trash. “Had to be Sidney Crosby day.”

He stalks into the bathroom and scrubs vigorously at his hands until his palms hurt.

+

Sidney Crosby walks into his classroom during seventh period. Evgeni pauses mid-sentence, and there’s an awkward moment where what he’d been saying about the massacre of unarmed protesters during the 1905 Russian Revolution seems to echo while a two-time Stanley Cup winner stands in the back of his classroom and politely folds his hands.

There’s a camera crew over his shoulder, recording Evgeni’s expression for the whole world to see, and Sidney Crosby smiles, a little sheepishly, and then one of Evgeni’s students turns around, gasps, and the entire room erupts into chaos.

 “Quiet!” Evgeni barks, finally, in Russian, and everyone falls silent. Sidney Crosby is still smiling, but the expression looks strained, and even the camera crew look overwhelmed by the sight of twenty-five shouting high schoolers.   “Everyone breathe,” Evgeni says. “Is only Sidney Crosby. Not big deal.”  He grins at Sidney, who smiles tentatively back.  A man with a camera follows Sidney Crosby as he crosses to the front of the classroom with his hand outstretched. Evgeni, swallowing around the dryness in his throat, extends his own.  

“Um,” Sidney Crosby says, and Evgeni looks down and sees that his palm is still stained blue with ink.

“Had accident with pen,” he sighs. “Try wash hands, but not come off. Sorry,” he pulls his hand away, and shoves it in his pocket. “Not need shake.”

“No!” Sidney Crosby says, and he reaches for Evgeni’s hand, even though that means he has to tug it out of his pocket. “It’s fine. I’m, uh, I’m Sidney Crosby.”

“Very nice to meet,” Evgeni says, solemnly, while his students giggle. “I am Evgeni Malkin.”

Sidney flushes harder at that, and he laughs uncomfortably to cover it up. Evgeni is horribly charmed. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Malkin.”

The film crew records footage of Sidney interacting with Evgeni’s students, signing phone cases and answering questions. He balks at taking selfies, but amiably allows the crew to herd him into a group photo. Evgeni is ushered to the middle of the clump of students to stand beside Sidney, and he does his best to keep their arms from brushing, curling his fingers into fists and shoving them in his pockets.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your class like this,” Sidney mutters while the photographer swaps lenses. He’s shorter than Evgeni expected, and his hair is a little long around his ears and at the nape of his neck, where it curls softly.

“Is okay,” Evgeni says. “Will teach Russian revolution tomorrow.”

 The photographers’ flash goes off, blinding Evgeni momentarily, and the bell rings half a moment later. There’s a mad rush for the door – even Sidney Crosby isn’t enough incentive to stay late – and Evgeni slumps against his desk as the classroom empties out. Sidney follows shortly after, ushered away by a woman with a clipboard in a hijab and sharp heels. He makes a point of shaking Evgeni’s hand as he goes, though, and Evgeni appreciates the gesture.    

“It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Malkin,” Sidney says softly, when they’ve held hands for a little longer than is strictly necessary.

“Can call Evgeni,” Evgeni says. “Or Geno, is easier for tongue.”

Sidney flushes and laughs to hide it, his mouth red and crooked. He lingers for a moment in the doorway to Evgeni’s classroom, and then waves a little awkwardly before following the Pens PR woman out.  

The film crew interviews Evgeni after he’s gone, sitting him down behind his desk, and shining a light in his face while they ask him to describe what it was like to meet Sidney Crosby.

“Is good,” Evgeni says, trying to not look directly at the camera. “I like hockey since grow up in Russia, is good to meet best hockey player in the world. Sidney Crosby very polite, apologize for interrupt important lesson on Russian history.”

The woman interviewing him smiles indulgently and asks him what his favorite hockey team is. “Capitals,” Evgeni lies, grinning at the camera with his tongue between his teeth. “Like Alex Ovechkin.”

+

They run the segment on the local news channel at the end of the week, and Tanger invites himself over to Evgeni’s apartment to watch it.

He brings a six-pack of Tsingtao and several cartons of Chinese food, and throws himself onto the couch and his feet onto Evgeni’s coffee table, displacing several folders and stray pages of notes Evgeni’s using to plan the next week’s classes.

“Hey, fuck you,” Evgeni says mildly, throwing a highlighter at Tanger’s toes.

“Stop working,” Tanger says. “It’s Friday night, and you are about to be famous.”

Evgeni sighs loudly, but he takes off his reading glasses and tosses them onto the table, and he scoops up a carton of lo mein and a pair of chopsticks, flicking the paper wrapper in Tanger’s direction and slumping into the couch.

The 8 o’clock news rolls around with its terribly cheesy theme song and Evgeni buries his nose in his noodles, trying to ignore Tanger’s loud cheers when the newscaster says:

“Sidney Crosby surprised a lucky high school teacher and his students earlier this week, when he visited their classroom after a photograph of a poster asking that the teacher only be interrupted if the Pittsburgh Penguin walks in the room went viral.”

They show a picture of Tanger’s tweet, and he throws his hands up in celebration. “Ha!” He crows, loudly. “You are welcome.”

“Says other things on the poster, too,” Evgeni says, frowning. “I’m write good joke about U-boat in Allegheny.” Tanger shushes him.

The next few minutes are excruciating. Evgeni wasn’t aware that his face looked quite so fond when the whole thing was actually happening, but he’s pretty sure Tanger is never going to let him live it down. The only thing that makes it slightly bearable is that Sidney looks flushed, too, and there’s a hilarious shot of him ducking out of some intrepid student’s snapchat.

“Is he _blushing_?” Tanger asks, leaning forward as if he smells blood, and Evgeni sighs.

“My classroom always warm. No blushing.”

“He’s totally blushing,” Tanger says, blithely ignoring him. “Geno, this is fucking great. He has a crush on you, too!”

“Not true,” Evgeni says, while his disembodied voice says ‘Is good to meet best hockey player in the world’ onscreen. He cringes, and Tanger swivels around to look at him, knocking over a half-full container of sweet and sour chicken and ignoring it.

“The best hockey player in the world?” He asks, his voice rising incredulously. He looks thrilled, like he’s just been handed so much ammunition he isn’t quite sure what to do with it.

“You tired?” Evgeni asks, throwing napkins on the mess of sweet and sour sauce on his coffee table. “Miss hot wife? Nice son? Should go home.”

“This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me,” Tanger says thoughtfully. “I fucking love Twitter.”

“You have baby,” Evgeni says, and Tanger waves a lazy hand in the air.

“Okay, second greatest thing that ever happened to me. No, third greatest, after Alex’s birth, and Cath agreeing to marry me. Oh, maybe fourth. After our wedding.”

“Leave my house now,” Evgeni says, picking up a throw pillow and covering his face with it. “Not welcome any more.”

“You know he’s not Russian, right?” Tanger asks, grinning.

“Hate you,” Evgeni says into the pillow. “Get more beer or leave.”

Tanger laughs and knocks a cold bottle against his knuckles. “This is so fucking great. I’m putting this on Twitter.”

“NO.”

“Yes.”

There’s a brief tussle over the phone, and the news has switched over to the weekend weather forecast by the time Evgeni victoriously shoves Tanger’s face into the cheap shag rug in his living room and flings his phone across the room, where it slides into his kitchen and under the fridge.

+

Tanger does tweet out a photo of Evgeni with the pillow over his face when he gets home, and Evgeni sighs and texts him a long string of knife emojis.

It’s not a bad picture, though, all things considered. It’s a little blurry, and the pillow only covers the top of his face, so you can see him grinning, and his legs stretched out on the couch.  

Tanger’s captioned it “.@emalkin_71_geno reacting to his fifteen seconds of fame. #sidneycrosby #mancrush” and Evgeni will need to punch him in the dick for that last hashtag, but it could be so much worse.

And then the official Pittsburgh Penguins twitter retweets Tanger’s tweet, and Evgeni refuses to speak to him for three days.

+

It takes time, but by the end of the week, things have died down. Evgeni’s students are distracted by the pop quiz he sprung on them on Wednesday morning, and the prospect of the annual homecoming game and dance. The school is buzzing with rumors, but the students are talking about who is going to the dance with who, and the fact that Sidney Crosby visited Mr. Malkin’s classroom is already old news.

Evgeni is grateful for the decline in attention, but he can’t deny that it was a nice fantasy, those few days when everyone was watching his every move, in case Sidney Crosby showed up again, just to see him.

He’s not lonely, per se: he goes out regularly with Flower and Tanger and a few of the other teachers, and he dates, but it’s never serious.

He’s _busy_ : he’s at school from 7-5 every day of the week, and on Saturdays he’s planning lessons and grading papers and he coaches the local midget league every other weekend.

It’s not a bad life. He has good friends and a job he loves, and dozens of students that drive him crazy but who he is always sad to see go at the end of their four years. He has a little apartment and a cat who ignores him and likes to climb on top of his bookshelves and knock things down in the middle of the night, and things are good.  

One day after school, when the students have cleared out, and the hallways are full of that ringing silence they get when eight hundred teenagers aren’t streaming through them, Evgeni closes his eyes and lets himself imagine what it would be like.

What his life would look like if he was dating someone seriously. If he was dating Sidney Crosby. He’d be having more sex, probably, and he’d get to see hockey games in person, rather than on TV.

He amuses himself for a moment, imagining what it would be like to watch a game from the wives and girlfriends box, before his mind drifts to what it would be like to share a bed with someone, to have someone to come home to, to cook dinner with, to elbow sleepily over the bathroom sink in the mornings.

He catches himself sighing and opens his eyes, looks around his empty classroom, and stands up, gathering his things, and refusing to let himself think about it any longer.

+

Two weeks after Sidney Crosby and the Pens PR people surprise him, Evgeni is grading papers in his classroom and swearing to himself in Russian when there’s the urgent squeak of dress shoes on linoleum in the hallway outside, and Conor Sheary topples into his classroom.

“Geno!” He looks like he’s run the length of the school, from the drama to the history departments, and he bangs his palms flat against the door frame excitedly. “Sidney Crosby is in the front office!”

Evgeni’s chair, which he had tipped onto its back two legs, come crashing back down to the floor.

“What?” He asks, staring at Conor, who nods excitedly.

“Mrs. Gonzalez is talking his ear off,” he says, and Evgeni scrambles to his feet, knocking a pen, an empty soda can, and half a dozen essays off his desk as he goes. He takes off for the front office at a sprint, with Conor on his heels.

Mrs. Gonzalez, Principal Liu’s assistant, is a wonderful woman. She has had Evgeni’s back since he first started working at the school, and when she makes her famous tres leches cake for their staff Christmas party, she always saves him an extra slice. She is also an unrepentant gossip, and Evgeni can only imagine what she and Sidney Crosby are talking about.

Conor’s babbling something behind him as they run, but Evgeni can’t hear him, and when he skids to a stop around the corner from the front office Conor runs right into him and nearly falls over.

“Sorry, sorry!” He says, righting himself, and frowning. “Why did you stop?”

“This not….” Evgeni begins, a terrible idea forming in his mind. “This prank? Tanger?”

Conor blinks. “No? What… _no_ , Geno, I wouldn’t do that! Sidney Crosby really is in there talking to Mrs. Gonzalez.”

“Okay,” Evgeni says, and smooths down the front of his sweater. It’s a little rumpled, since it is the end of the day, and his pants are a little creased, but there’s not much he can do about that.

“Okay,” he repeats, and then rounds on Conor. “Don’t tell Tanger Sidney Crosby here.”

Conor nods seriously and gives Evgeni a thumbs-up before hurrying off.

Outside of the office, Evgeni takes a deep breath and then peeks through the glass door. Mrs. Gonzalez has Sidney cornered by the coffee machine, and she’s showing him something on her phone.

Sidney has his hands shoved deep in the pockets of the jeans he’s wearing, and he doesn’t look too uncomfortable, but who knows what Mrs. Gonzalez is showing him on the phone. It could just be photos of her many nieces and nephews, who are, admittedly, adorable, but it could also be photos of that disastrous office party where Tanger got Evgeni drunk on box wine and he tried to dance on a table in the staff room.

Blanching at the thought, Evgeni swings the office door open hard enough that it hits the wall and ricochets back towards him. Sidney jumps, and immediately starts turning pink at the sight of Evgeni, but Mrs. Gonzalez just puts her phone away and beams.

“Geno, look who’s here!”

“Yes, can see,” Evgeni says. “Hi, Sidney Crosby.”

“Hey.” Sidney pulls a hand out of his pocket and offers it to Evgeni. It’s warm and his handshake is firm, just the way it was last time. When they’re done shaking hands, Evgeni wiggles his fingers a little in front of Sidney’s face, and says:

“No ink this time.”

And Sidney… Sidney looks at his hand for a moment and then bursts into a gust of laughter that’s so loud it startles even Mrs. Gonzalez. Evgeni blinks, and then smiles slowly.

“Mr. Crosby was just saying he was in the neighborhood and thought he’d drop by to see you,” Mrs. Gonzalez says over Sidney’s shoulder. “I’m happy to give him a tour of the school, if you’re busy, or –.”

“No, no,” Evgeni says hastily. “Thank you, Eliana, we go now.” He pushes the office door back open and steps out into the hallway, and Sidney follows him a half-second later.

“Have fun!” She trills after them, and offers Evgeni a salacious wink through the door. He makes frantic abort motions at her behind Sidney’s back, and then tucks his hands behind him like a waiter, smiling innocently when Sidney notices.

“We go to my classroom?” He suggests, and starts heading down the hall, crossing his fingers that they won’t run into anyone else, and especially not Tanger. “Quiet, no one interrupt.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Sidney says, rubbing the back of his neck with one big hand. “I was going to try to find you there, but I couldn’t remember where it was, so I stopped in the front office to ask for help, and, uh….”

“Mrs. Gonzalez capture you,” Evgeni says, shaking his head. “Is okay, happen to best of us.”

Sidney giggles a little bit, and ducks his head when Evgeni looks at him, turning instead to the posters lining the walls, advertising upcoming bake sales, club meetings, volunteer opportunities and more. Evgeni leads the way to his classroom, and opens the door, closing it firmly behind Sidney, and offering him one of the chairs behind the desk.

“Thanks,” Sidney says, and sits down. Evgeni, at a loss, flicks on the electric kettle that sits precariously on the window sill behind his desk, and sits down, prepared to wait the awkwardness out.

“I just wanted to apologize for interrupting your class last week,” Sidney says, finally. “I don’t really know where our PR people get their ideas but, uh, the clip did pretty well online, apparently.”

He looks embarrassed about it, and Evgeni shrugs. “Is fine, not big problem. And kids like.”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, and smiles. “They were, uh, they seemed pretty excited about it.”

“More excited if Ovechkin,” Evgeni says with a straight face, and turns to pour hot water over tea leaves and hide his smile while Sidney splutters. He looks genuinely put out when Evgeni turns around, and Evgeni laughs. “Just joking, Sidney,” he says. “Penguins hockey best hockey. I’m know.”

Sidney looks mollified, and he accepts a mug of tea from Evgeni. “That’s not… I mean. It would be fine if you liked the Caps better. You’re allowed to like whichever team you like.” It looks like it physically pains him to say it, and he takes a long sip of tea when Evgeni smiles at him.

“I’m like Penguins best.” He says. “Pittsburgh my city, got to support team.”

“How long have you been in Pittsburgh?” Sidney asks. He’s blushing a little bit, though Evgeni thinks that might be from the heat of the tea. It had been an unseasonably warm day, and he’s feeling a little warm under his sweater, too.

“Five years,” Evgeni says. “Teach here for four years.”

“I don’t know much about Russian history,” Sidney says pensively. “I’m pretty interested in World War II, though. I took a class on it online a couple seasons ago.”

“Really?” Evgeni leans forward, his interest piqued. “On what?”

“Oh, it was just kind of a general overview,” Sidney says. “I think it was a 100-level course for college freshmen, but I thought it was pretty interesting.”

He looks embarrassed again, but Evgeni shakes his head and sets his mug down on the desk. “Sid, is great. Always good to study, learn about what you do not know. Very important. And World War II very interesting. Very terrible, but very interesting.”

“Yeah, I used to, uh, I used to volunteer at a hospital for vets up in Nova Scotia, before I left for hockey. I liked hearing their stories.”

“My grandfather,” Evgeni says, reaching for the small plastic box he keeps on the corner of his desk. “He was in war, receive this.” He hands it to Sidney, who gapes a little, tilting the box back and forth to look closer at the medal and the strip of red ribbon inside. “It is for hero of Soviet Union, awarded to his brigade after war.”  

Sidney’s eyes are bright and curious when he hands the medal back to Evgeni. “My final paper for the class was on development of radar detection technology during the war,” he says, excitedly, and Evgeni grins back at him and asks:

“Know about Abram Fyodorovich Ioffe? He do big work on _radioobnaruzhenie_.”

Sidney shakes his head, and Evgeni thinks back to his grad school classes, and they’re off.

Sid’s a little rusty on his facts, but the longer they talk the more it comes back to him, and the more excited he gets. He has a good head for history, and an obvious interest in the field, and Evgeni is surprised how easy it is to talk to him.

Sidney never explains why he’s really there, but after an hour has passed and their conversation is interrupted by the distant roar of an industrial vacuum cleaner in the hallway, Evgeni finds he doesn’t really care.

Sidney, who had jumped a little bit at the sound of the vacuum starting, glances at his watch, and bites his lip. “Oh, god, it’s so late – I had no idea, I didn’t mean to keep you for so long.”

“Not mind,” Evgeni says. “Enjoy talking, I’m forget time, too.”

Sidney grins at him a little shyly, and Evgeni has a sudden terrible, wonderful thought that maybe the reason Sidney Crosby came back to his school, drank his tea, and talked to him about metric wavelength for an hour was to flirt with him.

They sit there, smiling quietly at each other for a moment, until the roar of the vacuum gets louder and closer.

“Too loud to think, soon,” Evgeni says. “We leave? Have to get home anyway, feed cat.” He cringes inwardly as soon as he mentions Kazimir, but Sidney doesn’t seem put off by it.

“Oh, what’s her name?” He asks, standing and waiting patiently for Evgeni to gather his things and lock the classroom door behind them.

“His name Kazimir,” Evgeni says, leading them down the hallway to the parking lot. “Very good cat, but not like me very much.”

Sidney laughs, and it’s just as loud as it was before. “I’m sure he likes you just fine, Geno.” He says, and something in Evgeni’s belly warms at the fondness in his voice.

“No, no,” he says. “Very pretty cat, good with kids. But ignore me all time. Spill food, scratch furniture. Jump on head from top of bookshelves.”

Sid cracks up at that, and Evgeni grins at him, taking in the way his shoulders shake helplessly when he giggles, his face creased in an irrepressible smile. Stories about Kazimir’s insolent streak keep them occupied until they reach the parking lot, where Geno hesitates by his secondhand Volvo, and covertly scans the lot for an unfamiliar car.

“This my car,” he says unnecessarily, and Sidney stops, and tips his baseball cap a little further up his forehead.

“Right,” he says, and opens his mouth, and then closes it again.

“Nice to see, Sid,” Evgeni says gently. “Good to talk.”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, and he’s blushing again, faintly visible in the dusky light that’s settled over the teacher’s parking lot. “Yeah, it was great. I’ll see you around, okay?”  

Evgeni highly doubts that, but he nods anyway, and shakes Sidney’s hand when he extends it.

In the silence of his own car, Evgeni rests his forehead on the steering wheel and takes a half dozen deep breaths, before turning the car on and fishing his phone from his pocket.

“Tanger, I’m tell you something, and you give me good advice,” he says without preamble, when Tanger picks up.

“You’re _going_ to tell me something, or was what you just said the thing you wanted to tell me?” Tanger asks, because he is, first and foremost, an asshole.

Evgeni grits his teeth and says: “Sidney Crosby come back to school. Talk to me for an hour about radar.”

There’s an ominous silence on the other end, before Tanger says, so precisely Evgeni almost can’t hear his accent: “What. The _fuck_.”

“Tell me what to do,” Evgeni says, twisting the steering wheel and speeding out of the parking lot.

“Well. I mean, suck his dick, obviously,” Tanger says thoughtfully, and Evgeni hangs up on him.

+

“Okay,” Tanger says, when he calls Evgeni back an hour later. He sounds incredibly cheerful, and also a little bit like he’s put Evgeni on speakerphone. “Operation Fuck Sidney Crosby, steps one through twenty six. You ready for this shit?”

“No.” Evgeni says, and sighs directly into the phone.

“Too bad, motherfucker,” Tanger says, gleefully. “Put on your seatbelt, this is going to be the ride of your life.”

Evgeni hangs up on him again.

+

Tanger spends a week making Evgeni regret ever telling him that Sidney Crosby came to visit him.

He regrets ever befriending Tanger, when they were assigned to the same team during an astonishingly vicious game of staff-only dodgeball during the week of teacher-training during Evgeni’s first year at school. He regrets coming to Pittsburgh.

And then Sidney Crosby shows up again two weeks later, and Evgeni takes back that last regret.

They’re nearing the end of their first unit of the year, and Evgeni is exhausted. He’d caught the stomach bug that had passed around most of the eleventh grade, missed three days of school, and has been rushing to catch up ever since. He’s been at school late most evenings this week, and was hoping to get home early for once to catch up on some sleep, when the photocopier puts its foot down and resolutely refuses to copy his exam correctly.

He’s in the middle of swearing at it – pages three and four keep getting flipped around for some unfathomable reason and the damned machine will not staple _anything_ – when someone coughs behind him, and he rounds on them furiously.

He _knows_ he’s been hogging the photocopier for nearly forty-five minutes, but there’s another one in the library, and he’s nearly done, and if Mr. Charles the Environmental Science teacher stops by _one more time_ to breathe pointedly in Evgeni’s direction and make snide comments about the value of the humanities Evgeni will be forced to do something drastic.

It’s not Mr. Charles, though. It’s Sidney Crosby, and Evgeni is so surprised he actually drops the stack of successfully printed exams he’s holding. The unstapled papers go everywhere, of course, and he looks at the ceiling and swears loudly, and at length, in Russian.

“Whoa.” Sidney says, actually taking a step backwards. And he’s a professional hockey player, who faces down Zdeno Chara a few times a year, so the look on Evgeni’s face must be pretty dire. “Sorry,” he continues, “Mrs. Gonzalez said I could find you here, but I should have, um.” He looks horrified with himself. “I keep interrupting you, I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Evgeni says, and rubs his hands over his face. “No, is not you. Is long week. And photocopier spawn of devil.”

Sidney’s laugh makes him sound like a goose, and Evgeni is not remotely put off by it.

“Do you need any help?” Sidney asks, moving a little closer. “I don’t know much about photocopiers, but I can help organize the, uh.” He waves a hand at the papers all over the ground, and Evgeni sighs.

“Shouldn’t have to help with work,” he says. “Should be guest.”

“I really don’t mind,” Sidney says earnestly. “I’m happy to help.”

“Okay,” Evgeni says, and it’s rude to make him help, but he really is exhausted, and if Sidney’s offering….

They scoop the papers up off the ground together, and Evgeni spreads them out across the nearest table. They’re in the staff room, so that table probably has residue from someone’s lunch all over it, but Evgeni no longer gives a shit.

The pages are numbered, at least, and Sidney sits down and begins piecing the exams together one by one with a look on his face that Evgeni has seen on TV many times before, when the Pens are down one with a minute and a half left in the third period, and Sid’s line is about to go over the boards.

Evgeni turns back to the photocopier, and with a combination of hip-checking, poking at the touchscreen interface, and cajoling in the sweetest Russian he can manage, gets the rest of his exams printed.

He finds a stapler when he’s done, and sinks down in the chair across from Sidney, checking and stapling together the exams he’s already stacked neatly. They’re down to the last dozen or so, when the door bangs open and Tanger sticks his head in.

“Geno, how fucking long does it take one man to photocopy sixty exams?” He asks, and then opens the door even wider, grinning like a shark at the sight of Sidney Crosby handing exams off to Evgeni to staple.

“Photocopier evil.” Evgeni says, stapling the final exam together with a particularly vicious shove of the stapler. Across the table from him, Sidney laughs quietly.

“You want to introduce me to your guest, Geno?” Tanger asks, sidling up to the table and smirking so hard it looks like his face might get stuck that way. Evgeni hopes his face gets stuck that way.

“You know Sidney Crosby, Tanger,” Evgeni says, sighing. “Sid, this Kris Letang. Art teacher. Worst teacher in school. Very bad at art. Only here because administration take pity, because he so ugly.”

Tanger swats at Evgeni’s head and swears at him in French. Sidney stands up to shake his hand, and Evgeni collects his papers and suffers through Tanger telling Sid that his tweet is actually the reason Sidney came to the school the first time.

“Oh,” Sidney says, and he smiles a little and looks quickly at Evgeni, smiling a little wider at whatever look is currently on Evgeni’s face. “Well, thank you, then.”

“You are _welcome_ ,” Tanger says, and leers at Evgeni. “I’ll let you two get back to it, nice to meet you Sid. That was a wicked goal against Toronto last night, by the way. _Fuck_ the Leafs,” he says, with feeling, and leaves Evgeni sighing and Sidney looking quietly pleased with himself.

“Was good goal,” Evgeni says, as they collect their things. “I’m think too, but Tanger say first.”

Sidney laughs a little bit, and he looks even more pleased with himself. They walk out to the parking lot in silence, and hesitate by Evgeni’s terrible car.

“I really am sorry for interrupting you again,” Sidney says after a moment. “You should, uh, you should give me your number so we can coordinate schedules.” He blushes immediately afterwards, but he holds Evgeni’s gaze steadily, and Evgeni takes note of how good determination looks on him, through the distant rushing in his ears.

Sidney Crosby is almost definitely flirting with him. Sidney Crosby is using a ridiculously flimsy excuse to ask for his phone number, and when he tells Tanger about this later, he’s going to tell him that he asked for Sidney’s number first.

“Okay,” he says, when his heart has stopped pounding. He pulls his phone from his pocket and thumbs it open. “But you give yours too.” He smirks. “For schedules.”

Sidney blushes harder, but he takes Evgeni’s phone and enters his number carefully, and then hands Evgeni his own phone. Evgeni puts his number in equally carefully and then puts a Russian flag emoji beside his name, and hands the phone back. Sidney’s lock screen photo is a blonde girl grinning in bulky goalie pads, and their smiles are similar enough that it must be his sister.

“I like text,” Evgeni says, when they both have their own phones, and he’s pretending he’s lost his car keys somewhere in the bottom of his tote bag to drag the moment out. “Is easier than talk. For my English.”

“Your English is great,” Sidney says immediately. “It’s way better than my Russian.”

“You know Russian?” Evgeni asks, raising his eyebrows.

Sidney makes a face. “Not really. Ovechkin went through a phase where he tried to teach me Russian during warmups whenever we played the Caps. I don’t remember much of it, and Gonch told me it was all filthy, anyway.”

Evgeni rolls his eyes. “I teach you Russian sometime,” he promises. “I teach you good Russian.”

Sidney smiles, and then bites his lip, as if that will help conceal how happy he looks. “I’d really… I’d like that.”

They smile at each other for another moment before Sidney’s phone buzzes twice in his hand, and he frowns at it. “I should go,” he says regretfully. “But I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes. Soon,” Evgeni agrees. “Bye Sid.”

“Bye Geno,” Sidney says softly, and waves.

+

_Ovechkin called me a ‘pizz-da’ tonight. What does that mean?_

Evgeni takes a moment to tease out the swear word Sidney’s butchered with his spelling, and then texts back immediately, irresistibly charmed by his careful punctuation.

_not want to know. very bad word._

_good you beat him,_ he adds, a moment later. _beautiful goal._ Sid had scored the game-winning goal in OT, and it had been a beauty: one of those incredibly difficult shots he was always making look easy.

 _Thank you :)_ Sidney texts, half an hour later.  Evgeni stares at the typed-out emoticon and then indulges in a moment of ridiculousness, hugging his phone to his chest and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Fuck,” he whispers after a moment. “I am fucked.”

+

“Okay, so he’s not _out_ , but he’s obviously gay.”

“He could be bisexual,” Flower offers, frowning at Tanger over his beer.

Tanger salutes Flower with his ale. “Very true, we have to allow for all expressions of sexuality.”

“Why you like this?” Evgeni asks. He’s feeling a little blurry: he should have known there was a reason Tanger offered to stand him a couple rounds of really nice vodka at their favorite sports bar.

“One of my students came out to me yesterday,” Tanger says, shifting into utter seriousness for a moment. “It was really moving, actually. I was honored.”

Flower pats him on the head, and Evgeni salutes Tanger this time. “Not such bad teacher, I guess,” he allows, and Tanger grins at him.

“Anyway,” he says, after they’ve sat in silence for a companionable moment. “He’s not out, but he’s totally into you.”

Evgeni groans, and covers his face with a hand. “Need more vodka,” he says.

“I’m serious, Geno,” Tanger says, and Evgeni peeks at him, because that is his serious voice, and Tanger genuinely looks concerned about this.

“Have you talked to him about his intentions?” He asks. “Is he looking to date you or does he just want some kind of one night stand bullshit? And if you guys start dating, what then?”

“Nothing happen yet,” Evgeni says. “Thinking about it too hard.”

“You should consider it, Geno,” Flower says, far more gently than Tanger ever could. There’s a reason he’s the guidance counselor. “Think about what you’d do if something _did_ happen, but he wanted to stay in the closet.”

Evgeni groans. “Will figure out when come to it,” he says. “For now, nothing happen, so there is nothing to think.”

“Just… keep it in mind,” Flower says, and Tanger nods. Evgeni sighs.

“Will think about it,” he says. “But not right now. Now we talk about something different.”

“Or I could kick your ass at pool,” Tanger says, winking at Evgeni and standing up, because he knows Evgeni can never resist a direct challenge.

“We do that,” Evgeni says, draining his glass. “Except I kick your ass and tweet embarrassing picture of you for once.”

Tanger is significantly more drunk when Evgeni beats him at pool a second time and messes his hair up beyond repair for the twitter photo. He lists against Evgeni in the cab, and before Evgeni shoves him out on the curb in front of his apartment he nuzzles Evgeni’s ear and says:

“Shotgun best man.”

Evgeni opens the door and pushes him out, then drags Flower back inside the cab when he twists half his upper body through the window and shouts: “You can’t shotgun best man!”

“Nobody best man!” Evgeni grunts, tugging Flower back into his seat and apologizing to the cab driver. “I have _brother_.”

Flower subsides against him, muttering to himself, and Evgeni pushes him out of the car when they arrive at his house around the corner. There’s a light on, and Evgeni hopes that Vero is still up and that she yells at him.

He slumps against the seat and checks his phone while the driver pulls away from the curb. Sidney’s texted him a blurry photo of the New York skyline, and he smiles fondly at it, and then presses his phone up against the window of the cab and snaps a quick picture of his drive home, as they cross the West End Bridge.

Evgeni thinks Sidney played a game tonight, and he expected to have to wait until the next day for a response, but one comes almost immediately.

 _Looks great._ Sidney writes. _We’re home tomorrow, and thought I might drop by the school – will you be there late?_

Evgeni studies the n-dash and the way it makes his heart flutter a little bit, and makes himself wait a moment, so he doesn’t seem too eager.

_will be late, yes. good to see you! )))))))_

_:)_ Sidney texts, and Evgeni smiles stupidly at his phone.

When he gets out and pays the driver it takes him a moment to remember why the driver might be congratulating him while making change.

Then he blushes and mumbles, “Not getting married,” before fleeing into his apartment.

+

Evgeni is on edge all day, and he forces himself to focus on lesson planning when the bell rings for the end of school, spreading his notebook out on his desk and calling up the files he needs on his laptop.

It takes a while, but he manages to get into the swing of it, and is startled when Tanger knocks on his door and says: “Heads up, Crosby’s in the front office talking to Mrs. Gonzalez.”

Evgeni sighs mightily, and pushes his chair back to go rescue Sid, once again, but Tanger glances over his shoulder and waves him back, then steps aside to let Sidney into the classroom, and gives Evgeni an enormous wink over his shoulder as he leaves.

“Hi,” Sidney says. He looks a little surprised that Evgeni is expecting him, and then he glances down and blushes, and Evgeni tries not to preen when Sidney’s gaze snags on his waist coast and slim trousers.

“Should stop coming to school,” Evgeni teases. “Mrs. Gonzalez think we have affair, spread rumors.”

Sidney turns pink, but he shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and gets a determined look on his face anyway. “I could see you somewhere else,” he proposes. “Like a restaurant? For dinner?”

Evgeni raises his eyebrows and grins at him. “Now?” He asks, and Sidney shrugs, looking away from Evgeni, peering around his classroom in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

“Okay, Sid,” Evgeni says, and he grins when Sidney’s gaze snaps back to him. “We go to dinner. Where you like?”

“I don’t really know this neighborhood,” Sidney says, and he hovers near Evgeni’s desk, touching the case with his grandfather’s medal in it carefully while Evgeni shuts down his laptop and gathers his things.

“My favorite is Indian restaurant, very close,” Evgeni says, and grins when Sidney tries and fails to hide the face he makes when he hears that. “Other places, too. We find something we both like.”

“No, no, Indian’s fine. It’s your favorite.” Sidney smiles at him, open and bright and earnest, and Evgeni drops a handful of pens on the ground when he tries to shove them all in his bag without looking.  

Tanger is leaning against the lockers outside of Evgeni’s classroom like he thinks he’s in The Breakfast Club, and he follows them out to the parking lot, smiling serenely when Evgeni glares at him.

Sidney’s got a modest SUV, and he moves a handful of hockey gear from the passenger seat to the back after unlocking it for Evgeni. Tanger, who had been lounging against a nearby car, taps against the roof as soon as they’re both inside. 

“Hey, asshole,” he says, sticking his face in Sidney’s. Sidney leans back, against Evgeni, and Evgeni groans.

“If you hurt my boy, I will fuck you up,” Tanger continues, and Evgeni is vaguely touched, but mostly mortified. “I will break both your ankles and I won’t even feel bad about it if the Pens don’t make it to the playoffs. Got it?”

Sidney nods solemnly. “I’m not going to hurt him,” he promises, and glances quickly at Evgeni.

“You fucking better not,” Tanger says. He glares for a moment longer and then straightens up. “Okay, get out of here. Geno, text me if you need anything.”

“Leave now, Tanger,” Evgeni says from beneath where he’s plastered his hands over his face.

“Be safe!” Tanger trills, and Evgeni groans loudly, sliding down in his seat while Sidney chuckles and pulls out of the school parking lot.

“Sorry,” Evgeni manages, when they’re a block or so away from the school and the embarrassment has started to fade. “Very, very sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Sidney says, turning neatly when Evgeni points out the turn he needs to take. “Duper would probably do the same for me. Or one of the other guys. Oh, hey, you should come see a game, sometime.”

Evgeni blinks. “Really?” He asks, and Sidney grins at him, and pulls into the parking restaurant outside of Evgeni’s favorite Indian restaurant.

“Yeah, I can get you tickets. Whenever you want.”

Evgeni grins at him, and leads the way inside.

They settle into a booth in the back of the restaurant, and Sidney studies the menu carefully, then looks up when first one waitress and then another stop by the table, leaving Evgeni a cold beer, and a plate of steaming samosas. He frowns and Evgeni shrugs sheepishly.

“I come here lots,” he says, “they know me.”

When a third waitress, a teenager with long black hair and a sparkling nose ring, stops by their table and says, “The usual, Geno?” Sidney laughs out loud at him, and Evgeni flushes and busies himself with his beer.

Sidney asks for a chicken tikka masala dish, ‘very mild,’ and nibbles on a corner of one of Evgeni’s samosas.

“Is okay if you don’t like,” Evgeni says, carefully. “Can still go somewhere else.”

“No, it’s nice.” Sidney says. “You said it’s your favorite and I want to try it.” He has that stubborn look on his face again, and Evgeni grins at him.

“Good at date, Sid,” he says. “Romantic.”

Sidney turns bright pink, which is a good look on him.

“So you said you’ve been in Pittsburgh for five years,” Sid says, wrestling the conversation in a different direction. It takes Evgeni a moment to remember that he did tell Sid that, _weeks_ ago. He’s flattered that he remembered. “Where were you before that?”

“Leave Russia for school,” Evgeni says, rubbing his hands together gleefully when their waitress deposits their food on the table. The conversation is momentarily derailed as he thanks her, and maneuvers palak paneer and a heaping spoonful of basmati rice onto his garlic naan. “Go to university in Canada,” he continues eventually, his mouth full.

“Oh!” Sidney says, looking up from his close examination of their basket of garlic naan. “Where did you go? I… I’m from Canada.”

Evgeni closes his mouth over a bite of paneer cheese to hide his fond smile. “I’m know, Sid. Whole world know that.”

Sidney turns pink again, and takes a bite of his chicken tikka masala, then makes a soft, appreciative noise, and takes another.

“I go to University of British Columbia,” Evgeni tells Sidney. “To Vancouver campus, get masters in history there, take education classes needed for Pennsylvania state license.”

Sidney looks quietly impressed, his fork drooping in his fingers. “That’s really amazing, Geno,” he says softly.

“Not as amazing as hockey player,” Evgeni says, waggling his eyebrows at him, and grinning triumphantly at the laugh and blush it gets him. “When I’m little, I’m think… be hockey player, too.”

Sidney lights up across the table from him. “Really?” He asks, leaning forward, and Evgeni reaches out and taps his shoulder to save the cuff of his dress shirt from his chicken tikka masala. “Did you play?”

“Am Russian,” Evgeni says, rolling his eyes. “Everyone play. I play for team until sixteen, then stop.”

Sidney frowns. “Why would you stop?”

“Like school too much,” Evgeni says. “To play better, have to choose between hockey and school. For hockey have to go live away from family, train many hours, miss class. Difficult choice, but I’m choose school.”

Sidney is quiet for a moment, toying with his food. He looks blank, like he can’t understand choosing something over hockey. Something twinges in Evgeni’s heart, and he grips his fork, hoping this isn’t a sticking point.

“Maybe we could skate together some time,” Sidney says eventually. “I’d like to see your moves.”

Evgeni leans back in his seat, kicking his legs out to frame Sidney’s and raising his eyebrows. Across the table, Sidney visibly thinks back over what he’s just said and turns red. “Have lots of moves,” Evgeni says. “Show you all of them, if you good.”

Sidney splutters and actually does get his shirt cuff in the chicken tikka masala this time, and they lose the thread of their conversation while laughing and trying to minimize the stain.

+

“Have question,” Evgeni says, later, when they’re lingering over their gulab jamun. Well, Evgeni is lingering. Sidney is poking at it and doing a bad job of hiding the dubious look on his face.

“Shoot,” Sidney says, easily.

“Not have to answer,” Evgeni says. “But… I am curious. Would like to know before….” He hesitates and Sidney looks at him and sets his spoon down. “You are in closet,” Evgeni says, as delicately as he can. “But take me on date.”

“I’m a private person,” Sidney says, twisting his fingers together, and looking over Evgeni’s shoulder. “I’m in the closet to the press and the wider world, because I want them to focus on my hockey and not my personal life. I don’t want who I decide to sleep with to be national news, you know? It’s not….” He sighs and scrubs his hands through his hair. “It’s not anyone’s business but my own.”

Evgeni nods. “What it like when you date people? Team know?”

“The team knows, and the coaching staff. My friends know. But I… I’m still a private person, you know? I’m not going to buy five hundred roses and give them to you during a media scrum.” He frowns down at his tangled fingers, shoulders up around his ears.

“No?” Evgeni says, mock-pouting. “I’m break up with you, then.” Sidney looks up, startled, and grins when he realizes Evgeni’s joking. “Okay with privacy, Sid,” Evgeni says. “I understand.”

“Yeah?” Evgeni nods. “Good. That’s….” Sidney heaves a sigh and slumps back in the booth, jumping a little when Evgeni taps his toes against Sidney’s running shoe. “That’s good, Geno,” he says, and takes a large bite of the gulab jamun they’re sharing, then makes a face that has Evgeni bent over the table with laughter.

“It’s the texture,” Sidney complains, frowning and stealing Evgeni’s water to take a long sip. “The texture is _weird_.”

+

Sidney drives Evgeni back to the school parking lot and then hovers over his shoulder while Evgeni unlocks his car and stows his things in the passenger seat. It’s late, but the moon is out, casting shadows beneath Sidney’s frankly absurd cheekbones, and Evgeni is full and happy and Sidney feels good beneath his hands when he cups his cheeks and tilts his face up.

“I’m kiss you now,” he says, “okay?”

Sidney nods, a little breathless, and Evgeni brushes their lips together gently. Sidney tastes spicy and a little sweet and he sighs when Evgeni slides his tongue against the seam of his lips, opening his mouth beneath Evgeni’s.

Evgeni is panting when he draws away, and Sidney looks dazed, reaching up to touch his lips and then Evgeni’s.

“You’re really good at that,” he whispers, and then grins when Evgeni laughs at him.

“I text when I get home,” Evgeni promises, pressing a kiss to Sidney’s cheek, and bopping his nose gently with a thumb.

“Okay,” Sidney says, squeezing Evgeni’s hip, lightly. “We’re back in New York the day after tomorrow, and then Boston the day after that.”

“Busy, busy,” Evgeni teases. “We find time.”

“Yeah,” Sidney says, his gaze stuck on Evgeni’s mouth. He surges up just before Evgeni pulls away and presses a hard kiss to his mouth, pulling back and apologizing when Evgeni stumbles into his car with the force of it. “Sorry, oops.”

“Is okay,” Evgeni says. “Know I’m irresistible.”

Sidney rolls his eyes and takes a step back, then another. “Text me when you get home,” he says, and Evgeni nods. “Good night, Geno.”

“Night, Sid.” Sidney grins at him and then waves, ducking around the side of his car. He waits for Evgeni to pull out of the parking lot, because he seems to have some deeply ingrained ideas about chivalry that Evgeni finds charming despite himself.

Evgeni sings along to the radio all the way home, and even the barrage of suggestive texts Tanger and Flower have sent him do nothing to wreck his good mood.

+

Three hours before the Islanders game, Evgeni texts Sid: _score me goal )))))))_

 _Okay,_ Sidney responds, and he does.

+

Evgeni has long thought that Penguins hockey is the best hockey in the world. And there is nothing more beautiful than Sidney Crosby’s hockey when he’s fired up. 

Evgeni will go to his grave denying that he’s sitting on the edge of his couch, clutching at his heart while Sidney careens past Boychuk and de Haan, burying a wicked shot in the back of the net, off an assist from Phil Kessel.

The camera zooms in on his face, creased with joy and then disappearing from view as he’s surrounded by teammates exchanging helmet taps, and Evgeni nearly jumps out of his skin when his phone rings.

“Are you watching this shit?” Tanger demands when he picks up, and Evgeni slumps back down into the couch, biting his lip over the replay of Sidney’s goal.

“I’m watch,” he says, and Tanger explodes into a flurry of French-Canadian cursing in his ear.

“I think I have a crush on him after tonight,” he says finally, subsiding into heated muttering. “Did you see that _goal_? Jesus _Christ_.”  

Evgeni frowns. “My hockey player,” he says, “get your own.”

Tanger laughs at him, and then bellows something in his ear when Cal Clutterbuck bowls Hornqvist over and nothing is called. He’s still yelling in French when Evgeni sighs and hangs up on him.

+

The next day, one of Evgeni’s best students, Rozina, wears a Crosby #87 jersey to school, and Evgeni walks into a door frame when he catches sight of it down the hall. He counts himself lucky that Sheary and half a dozen AP US History students are the only ones to witness his blunder, but Sheary must be growing immune to his intimidation tactics, because Tanger knows about it two hours later, and comes to laugh in his face during his planning period.

Mrs. Gonzalez is passing by while Evgeni muscles Tanger out of his classroom and into the hallway, and when she stops to ask him how Sidney is doing, Evgeni finds himself agreeing to chaperone the homecoming dance and make pirozhki for the upcoming bake sale to get out of answering her question.

It’s only later, when he’s pestering his mama over Whatsapp for her treasured pirozhky recipe, and trying to calculate exactly how many apples he’s going to need for the mountain of pirozhki he’s planning to make, that he starts to feel a little panicky.

Panicky about the amount of pirozkhi he’s going to have to make, the number of drunk teenagers he’s going to have to peel apart at the homecoming dance, and the secret life he’s going to lead while dating one of the most famous hockey players in the world. He wonders, staring blankly at the shelves of extra fine flour in front of him, if it’s going to be worth it.

The answer, which comes when Sid texts him: _We just got back to Pittsburgh, are you around?_ and his heart swoops treacherously, is a resounding _yes_.

Evgeni grabs a bag of flour and throws it into his cart, texting with one hand as he wheels his cart towards the checkout.

_yes but have to make pirozkhi for bake sale. want help?_

_Of course_ , Sid texts back, and Evgeni grins at his phone, and the sleepy-eyed teenager who rings up his purchases, while texting Sid his address.

He tidies up briefly when he gets back to his apartment and then spreads his ingredients out on the counter and curses.

 _bring paprika?_ He texts sheepishly, and smiles when Sidney texts him an affirmative. 

 _BEST SID,_ he texts back.

Sidney arrives half an hour later, in a _suit_ , and Evgeni is so caught up in staring at how the fabric of his suit jacket stretches indecently over his shoulders that he forgets to let Sidney in, and only does so when nearly a full minute has passed and Sidney is bright red.

“Is nice suit,” he says, when they’re both inside the apartment, and Sidney has taken off his dress shoes, and Evgeni has wasted even more time staring because his socks have _polka dots_ on them. “Comfortable, though? Not need to come straight here.”

“I wanted to see you,” Sidney says, absently. He’s wandering through Evgeni’s living room, lingering over the photographs of his parents and friends and stopping in front of his bookshelf, scanning each title with a little smile on his face.

Evgeni grins. “If I know you in suit, would have dressed up too.”

Sidney turns around at that, looking put out. “You don’t… I think you look nice.”

Evgeni is wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt under his favorite cardigan – the one Flower says makes him look like Mr. Rogers, whoever that is – and his hair is messy from a long day at school. He’s almost certain he does not look nice, but he’s flattered that Sidney thinks so, regardless.

“Oh, hey, I’ve got paprika,” Sidney says. He fishes it out of the inner pocket of his jacket, and then takes the jacket off, draping it neatly over the back of Evgeni’s couch.

His shoulders look even better in the crisp, white dress shirt, and Evgeni makes a big show of studying the jar of paprika carefully.

“My teammates want to meet you,” Sidney says, once Evgeni’s deemed the paprika acceptable and led them into the kitchen. He settles against the counter, and Evgeni looks up at him sharply.

“You tell them?”

“They wanted to go out and when I turned them down, they wanted to know why I was going to a supermarket to buy paprika instead of coming out to a bar with them. I told them so they wouldn’t think I was insane.”

Evgeni laughs, and Sidney grins at him. “Want to meet,” Evgeni says. “Whenever you want.”

“This Friday?” Sidney suggests, and Evgeni nods and then grimaces.

“Can’t. Have to chaperone homecoming dance. _Worst._ ” Sidney laughs at the face he makes, and Evgeni has to force his attention back to the recipe his mama texted him, and his array of ingredients.

“We find another time,” he says. “But we make pirozkhi now. Promise Mrs. Gonzalez; she not give Christmas bonus if no pirozhky for bake sale.”

Sidney laughs, and then lifts himself up on his toes, pressing a kiss against Evgeni’s cheek. “Okay, Geno,” he says, while Evgeni blushes, “let’s make pirozhki.”

His accent is horrendous, but he just smiles when Evgeni laughs at him.

They’ve just put the dough aside to rise when Kazimir sidles into the kitchen, hisses at Evgeni’s ankles, and falls completely and utterly in love with Sidney.

Evgeni is helpless to do anything but stare while the best hockey player in the world sits on his kitchen floor in his probably-very-expensive suit, and lets Evgeni’s notoriously grouchy cat climb all over him.

“I’m not believe,” he says. “Kazimir hate strangers. Kazimir hate _me_.”

“He’s _great_ ,” Sidney enthuses, holding out his fist for Kazimir to rub his squashed face against, grinning up at Evgeni when his purr increases in volume.  

Evgeni shakes his head at the two of them, and pulls the bacon, cheese, and apple he’s going to stuff the pirozhky with from the fridge, getting started on the filling while Sidney and Kazimir become best friends.

Kazimir gets bored eventually, and stalks off while Sidney brushes himself off and stands to help Evgeni roll out the dough and steal bites of the filling while Evgeni mutters at him and tries to hit him with a spatula.

“Thief, Sidney Crosby,” Evgeni complains, when Sidney absconds with a chunk of apple to the other side of the kitchen, his eyes bright with mirth. “Biggest thief, I’m not let you have pirozhki.”

Sidney plasters an enormous, false pout on his face. “Maybe Ovechkin will make me pirozhki,” he suggests, and bursts out laughing when Evgeni glowers at him.

“Worst funny,” he grumbles, and scatters another handful of flour on his counter, reaching for his rolling pin.

Sidney is still giggling to himself as he helps Evgeni cut the dough into squares, but he grows serious when he helps spoon filling into the squares of dough and fold them together. Evgeni sneaks a glance at him as he checks the oven, and bites down on a smile at the fierce concentration on Sidney’s face as he tucks the edges of the dough around each little mound of filling.

By the end of the night, they have four dozen slightly misshapen pirozhki, wrapped tightly in saran wrap, and ready for the bake sale.

Sidney has flour on the collar of his shirt, and down one leg of his navy dress pants. Evgeni is fairly sure he has yeast in his hair, but he’s also fairly sure he doesn’t care, because he’s had Sidney pushed up against the door to his apartment for the past five minutes, kissing the breath out of him.

Sidney sighs happily when Evgeni finally forces himself to pull back, and then laughs, his wonderful, too-loud laugh that makes Evgeni laugh too.

“I really do have to go,” Sidney says reluctantly, after they’ve wasted another few minutes kissing. “We’ve got practice and tape review first thing tomorrow morning. But I… I’ll text you.”

“Okay, Sid,” Evgeni says easily, leaning down to press one more kiss to his generous mouth. “Drive safe.”

“You are extremely distracting,” Sidney says, and lets himself out while Evgeni grins unrepentantly.

+

It’s tradition for teachers and administrative staff to fill a small section of the stands during the annual homecoming game. It’s a tradition Evgeni likes, and he likes it even more when he meets Flower and Vero in the parking lot and Vero hands him a scarf and a thermos of hot chocolate spiked with whiskey.

“Love you,” he says, smothering her in a hug and pressing a smacking kiss to her forehead while she giggles and pats his back.

“Hey!” Flower pokes him in the ribs, and when Evgeni doesn’t let go of his wife, resorts to pulling at his arms to get him to release her. “Let her go, she doesn’t even like you.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Vero says, laughing while Flower sputters at them, and Evgeni kisses the top of her head again.

“We run away together,” he tells her seriously, ignoring Flower’s protests. “You bring hot chocolate and I bring vodka. We never see Flower again.”

Flower pouts at them, and Evgeni gives Vero one last squeeze before pushing her gently in his direction, winding the scarf she’d brought him around his neck. It’s hand knit, and a little lumpy, but warm, and in the school’s colors.

“Hi Mr. Malkin! Hi Mr. Fleury!” Someone shouts as they file into the stands, and Evgeni waves.

“How are those college applications going, Jeremy?” Flower calls. “The deadline for Oberlin is next week.”

“It’s all good,” Jeremy calls back with a thumbs-up, and hustles out of earshot, joining a knot of his friends.

“Give him a break,” Vero says, elbowing Flower in the ribs as they make their way to where Tanger, Cath, and Alex are saving them seats. “Let him enjoy the game.”

“That boy is the best musician in this entire school,” Flower gripes. “He could do great things. Oberlin would be _lucky_ to have him study in their conservatory.”

Vero smiles indulgently at him, and nods along to his muttering as she ushers him along the row.

Evgeni drops into a seat beside Tanger, who hands him Alexander and steals his hot chocolate. He shifts Alex around in his lap, answering his French babble with Russian, and pulling his phone out of his pocket, snapping a picture of the field and then a selfie of their group in the stands to send to Sidney.

“Are you sending Sidney Crosby pictures of my child?” Tanger asks as they watch kick-off. “Because if you are, tell him he’s only three but his on-ice awareness is excellent and he’s almost definitely a prodigy.”

Evgeni elbows him and nuzzles Alex’s head when the motion makes him laugh. “Of course prodigy,” he huffs. “My godson.”

“So you _are_ sending Sidney Crosby photos of my child!” Tanger says, far too loudly, and Evgeni, Flower, and Cath shush him.

“ _Quiet_ , Tanger,” Evgeni hisses. “Anyway, could be sending photos to anyone,” he says. “Maybe send to mama.”

“I hope you don’t smile like that when you text your mother,” Tanger mutters, and Evgeni elbows him again, as hard as he can with his arms full of toddler, and checks his phone when it vibrates in his hand.

 _Wish I could be there!_ Sidney’s sent. _Good luck to the team, I’m rooting for them. :)_

Evgeni texts him a string of eyeless smiley faces, and a photo of the action on the field. Tanger steals his phone when he shoots to his feet to cheer for a touchdown scored by a huge junior he recognizes from his AP US History course, and he’s scrolling through their text conversation when Evgeni settles himself and Alex back on the bench.

“Seriously, Geno? You text like my mémé. Where are all the D-I-C-K pics?” Alexander twists in Evgeni’s lap to look at his father curiously, and Cath punches Tanger on the arm without taking her eyes off the field.

“Shut up, Tanger,” Evgeni grumbles. “Watching game.”

He texts Sidney updates on the game as it progresses, the hot chocolate and the intermittent texts he gets from Sidney keeping him warm. The team loses, in the end, a close loss to their perennial rivals that leaves the students a little subdued, and Evgeni exchanges fist-bumps and commiserations with some of them in the parking lot, as everyone heads home to get ready for the homecoming dance.

He cranks the heat as soon as he’s back in his car, and sends Sidney a dumb selfie, his nose and cheeks red with cold. Sidney doesn’t answer until Evgeni is back in his apartment, pulling on his dress pants, and he has to sit down to cope with the flash of intense heat that shoots through him when he reads:

_You look really good, Geno._

_look good too sid?_ Evgeni sends after a moment of deep breathing. And then, feeling daring, he sends a tentative: _send picture?_

Sidney doesn’t reply for nearly fifteen minutes, at which point Evgeni is fully dressed and dithering by the door, alternating between wondering if he should text an apology for being too forward, and reminding himself that he really does need to leave, or he’ll be late for his chaperone duties.

When Sidney texts back, Evgeni is delighted to see that he’s sent a selfie, one taken at a slightly awkward angle that doesn’t hide his blush, or the fact that his hair is sweaty and badly disheveled, like he’s just finished working out. It’s endearing as hell, and not very sexy, but Evgeni loves it.

 _look really good sid ))))))))))))_ , Evgeni texts, and laughs when he gets a gruff _Shut up_ in return.

+

After homecoming weekend, the Pens leave on a five-day road trip, where they win two and lose two. Sidney and the rest of the team fly home from Ottawa on a Friday afternoon, staring down a two-day break, and Evgeni texts him between classes, making dinner plans that have him fizzing with excitement.

He’s doing a half-assed job of getting his things together at the end of the day, distracted by Sidney’s text messages, which are all so charmingly, unintentionally flirty, when Rozina knocks on his classroom door, and steps inside when he looks up.

“Mr. Malkin?” She asks, taking a quavering breath, and he freezes when she bursts into tears.

Rozina is quite possibly the calmest teenager Evgeni has ever had the pleasure of teaching, and he fumbles with his phone while she takes a series of overwhelmed, gulping breaths, and then immediately starts to apologize for bothering him.

“Not bothering; sit, sit,” he says, frowning while he ushers her towards his desk, pushing lightly at her shoulder until she sinks into the more comfortable of the two chairs. He takes her backpack from her, and grunts in surprise at the weight.

“Sorry,” she says, looking miserable. “It’s kind of heavy.”

“Too many books hurt back,” he chides her gently, and she bites her lip and nods, looking for all the world like she’s holding back a fresh flood of tears through sheer willpower.

“Okay to cry,” he says softly, setting her backpack down. “I make tea, you cry as much as need to. Tissues on desk.”

Rozina laughs: a sad, wet giggle that makes Evgeni smile gently at her, and he flicks his kettle on, and pokes through his crowded desk drawers for the tin of fancy tea he got in a care package that July.

“My mama send me this tea from home,” he tells Rozina solemnly, unearthing a tea pot to go with it. “Special Russian tea,” he tells her, while she blows her nose and takes a series of deep breaths. “You like, is best.”

He pours them both a cup, adds a spoonful of honey to each, and ignores his phone when it vibrates against his hip.

Rozina takes a bracing sip, and then another, and gives Evgeni a real smile when he settles into the other chair behind his desk and taps the edge of his tea cup against hers.

“It’s really nice,” she says, staring into her tea cup.

“You tell me if too strong,” he says. “I put in more hot water.”

She nods and keeps drinking, and he refills her cup as soon as it’s empty.  

“I want to be a teacher,” she blurts, finally, after nearly five minutes of silence. “I… I’ve been considering master’s programs already, and I’m thinking of applying to Bennington, because everyone says their education program is really well regarded.”

“That great,” Evgeni enthuses, setting down his cup. “You be best teacher.”

He’s not exaggerating, though she doesn’t seem to believe him. Rozina is consistently the most engaged student in his classes, and she’s smart and conscientious, and he knows she’s the captain of the field hockey team, as well as the president of the Arab American Students Association. She’s a leader, and she’s tough and she’s smart, and he predicts nothing but good things for her future.

“My parents are really angry about it,” she says, sounding very small. “My dad wants me to get an MBA. He doesn’t think education is a lucrative profession, and not enough glory, you know? He wants me to graduate college and get a job that will make a lot of money, and make me famous, and it’s just such… _bullshit_!”

She breathes hard, and then winces. “Sorry. It’s just… it’s so stupid. They put so much pressure on me to do well, and to have the best life I can, and I know it’s because they love me, and they want me to have a better life than they have, but I just can’t make them understand that this is the life I want, and I don’t care if it’s going to be difficult, because I know it’s what will make me happy!”

“You tell them this?” Evgeni asks, quietly, and she huffs.

“Of course. Multiple times. They just don’t _listen._ ” She crosses her arms, and he just barely manages to not jump when his phone vibrates against his hip again. “They’re… it’s not like they’ll cut me off or anything, they’ll pay for school even if I do end up going to Bennington, but they’ll make me feel like I’m letting the family down, and that sucks. I don’t want to be disrespectful – I _know_ what they sacrificed, they tell me _all the time_ , but I just want to do my own thing. I want to do the thing that will make me happy.”

She frowns, and Evgeni toys with the edges of his tea cup, wondering what he can possibly say that will make her feel better.

“What did your parents say when you decided to become a teacher?” She asks him, after another long silence. Evgeni shrugs carefully, and refills her cup.

“Papa very worried when I move to Canada. Think maybe I not come home again. Think distance too far, country too different. Mama worry too, but she know is what I want to do. So she tell me to go.”

“And it worked out, right?” Rozina asks, a little desperately. She’s spilled tea onto the cuff of the sweatshirt she’s wearing, but doesn’t seem to have noticed. “You’re happy?”

“Am happy,” Evgeni says, nodding forcefully. “Very happy. Job hard, sometimes. Not pay a lot of money and a lot of work, you know this?” She nods seriously, her mouth set in a stubborn line. “But is worth it. I love teach, love students. Like school, like Pittsburgh. Is hard say goodbye to students, but I’m happy teaching them. I’m happy helping them learn.”

“You’re really good at it,” Rozina says earnestly. “You’re one of the reasons I decided I wanted to be a teacher.”

Evgeni grins at her. “Of course,” he teases. “Am best teacher.”

She laughs, and he really does jump this time when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. “Sorry, sorry,” he mutters. “Should answer.”

“Of course. I should go, it’s really late.” She starts to gather her things together, and Evgeni grimaces when he sees that he’s missed seven texts from Sidney.

“Hi,” he says, breathlessly, picking up. “Sorry, sorry Sid.”

“Hi, Geno.” Sidney says. He sounds carefully blank and Evgeni cringes, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I thought maybe you crashed your car somewhere.” It’s a bad joke, and falls flat. Evgeni takes a careful breath, and manages a smile for Rozina, who looks alarmed.

“Still at school,” Evgeni says, shooing Rozina away from his desk when she starts trying to clean up their tea cups. She makes a stubborn face in response, but backs off, picking up her backpack. “Very, very sorry.”

“We were supposed to meet for dinner an hour ago,” Sidney says. “Are you… do you not want to?” He sounds terribly vulnerable, and Evgeni pushes the heel of his palm against his forehead.

“Want! Want to have dinner,” he says. “I stay late to talk with student, sorry for not text.”

“Oh,” Sidney says quietly, and there’s a very long pause. “Sorry, I just thought….”

“I leave school now, come see you?” Evgeni asks hopefully. “Will bring flower, say sorry.”

Sidney laughs, and Evgeni grins, the tension in his shoulders easing a little bit. “You don’t have to do that Geno, I’m the one who overreacted.” Sidney says, and Evgeni is definitely going to google the nearest florists’, whether they’re still open, and figure out how much money he can realistically spare on an over the top floral arrangement.

“Do you want to come to my house, maybe?” Sidney asks. “I can get take out, and we can have dinner, like we planned.”

“Yes, want,” Evgeni says, clearing away the tea cups on his desk with one hand, and dropping the tin of Russian tea into his desk drawer. “Text me address? I be there soon.”

“Okay,” Sidney says, sounding pleased. “I’ll text you the address.”

They hang up, and Rozina looks guilty. “I’m sorry I kept you from your date,” she says, and grins when he blushes.

“Not… not date!” He blusters and she laughs, swinging her backpack over one shoulder.

“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Not a date, but you’re bringing him flowers?”

Evgeni grumbles at her in Russian, and she laughs, following him out into the hallway and to the parking lot.

+

The florist is closed for the day, but there’s an Edible Arrangements that’s open, and Evgeni gleefully purchases an arrangement of kiwi fruit cut into star shapes and stuck into half a cantaloupe.

He shoves it in Sidney’s face as soon as he opens the door, and laughs when Sidney takes it automatically, frowning at it.

“Flower shop closed,” Evgeni tells him, stepping inside the massive foyer of his home. “So I buy you fruit.”

“Wow… Geno. That’s… you shouldn’t have.” Sidney’s desire to be polite is clearly warring with his aesthetic sensibilities and Evgeni laughs even harder. Sidney looks at him and wrinkles his nose a little bit, and Evgeni smiles, cupping his face with both hands, and kissing him gently.

“Sorry I not text, Sid,” he murmurs. “Not happen again.”

Sidney shakes his head. “It’s really okay,” he mutters. “I was being greedy, I forgot that you have other responsibilities.”

“Not greedy to expect boyfriend to be on time for dates,” Evgeni says, and grins when Sidney’s breath catches a little.

“Still,” he says, then seems to lose the thread of what he was going to say as he takes Evgeni’s coat, and puts the fruit down on a small table in his entryway. “Are you hungry? I was going to call for Italian.”

He turns and leads the way down a hallway, and Evgeni picks up the fruit and brings it with him to what turns out to be the kitchen, laughing out loud when Sidney turns around and makes a little face when he sees it.

“Going to give me tour, Sid?” Evgeni asks, setting the fruit arrangement down in pride of place on the marble island in Sidney’s kitchen.

“Of course,” Sidney says, rolling his eyes when Evgeni adjusts the fruit on the kitchen island and beams at him. He extends a hand when Evgeni is done fussing with the fruit, and tugs a little bit to get Evgeni to follow him.

His house is enormous, and the decorations are modern and attractive, if a little impersonal. There are flashes of Sidney, though, in the photographs in brushed steel frames on the wall and mantle, the mess of books and magazines on the coffee table in his den, the tangle of running shoes and boxes of hockey equipment in the foyer.

It sounds like Sidney built it from the ground up, choosing everything from the color of the walls in the garage to the model of refrigerator in his kitchen. He’s obviously proud of the house, and Evgeni trails after Sidney as they wander from room to room, and he hooks his chin over Sidney’s shoulder when they pause in the dining room to study the table that dominates it.

Sidney uses his hands to sketch a picture of the origins of the enormous dining table, which had been hand-made by a woodworker in Cole Harbour who had gone to college with his father, and known Sidney as a child.

Evgeni’s asking him questions about how it was shipped to Pittsburgh, and where the wood came from, when he notices that Sid is getting progressively tenser in his arms. He’s standing so stiffly he must be uncomfortable, and he twitches a little bit when Evgeni squeezes his hip to punctuate what he’s saying.

“Something wrong, Sid?” Evgeni asks, finally, and jumps when Sidney sighs explosively.

“Why are you so interested in my dining room table?” He asks, sounding genuinely exasperated. “I didn’t realize we were going to spend so much time talking about tables when I asked you if you wanted to come over.” He’s frowning, and staring at his own table like it’s offended him, and Evgeni squeezes his hip again, and grins when Sidney jumps.

“This booty call?” Evgeni asks, his smile growing when Sidney turns red.

“No! Geno, _no_ , I didn’t mean it like that.”

Evgeni moves forward, pulling their hips together and sliding his fingers under Sidney’s shirt, grinning down at him when his breath hitches.

“I mean,” Sidney says, still flushed but backtracking quickly. “It could be a booty call? If you, um, if you want?”  

“Want,” Evgeni confirms, ducking his head to press a kiss to Sidney’s mouth. “Enough tables, show me bedroom.”

Sidney laughs, loud and generous, and turns around, leading Evgeni out of the dining room. They get distracted on the staircase, because there are photographs on the walls with pictures of Sid as a baby, and on a boat on a lake with his family, sunburned and grinning. Evgeni lingers by the photographs, studying each, memorizing Sidney’s lopsided grin, until Sidney tugs impatiently on the hem of his shirt and drags him away.

Sidney’s bedroom is clean and minimal: there’s a handful of workout clothes thrown on a chair in the corner of the room, a TV on the wall, more photographs on the bedside tables, and a plain grey bedspread.

Sidney pauses as soon as they’re inside, seeming to lose his momentum, so Evgeni knocks their hips together and pushes him backwards until Sidney’s stumbling and laughing, trying to kiss Evgeni and bat his hands away from the sensitive skin on the sides of his ribs all at the same time.

They get utterly tangled when they reach the bed, Evgeni yelping when his sweater gets stuck around his ears. Sidney looks apologetic when they manage to wrestle it off, and Evgeni tackles him back onto the bed when he bites his lip, kissing the unsure look off his face.

“Stay still,” he tells Sidney, bracketing his hips with his knees and tugging at the hem of his black t-shirt. “We get naked faster this way.”

Sidney squirms a little bit, but quiets when Evgeni pulls off his shirt and kisses the dip at the base of his neck, his skin-warmed necklace, and just above his navel. He enjoys the full-body shiver that last kiss gets him, and it’s only the frantic clenching of Sidney’s fingers in the sheets by his hips that gets him to pause, and sit back, looking down at Sidney, shirtless and panting beneath him.

“This okay, Sid?” He asks, taking a breath to slow the messy beating of his heart. “You want?”

Sidney shudders again, and nods forcefully, throwing his head back against the pillow. “Geno, _yes_. I want it. I want you.”

Evgeni grins. “I’m give,” he says, and Sidney groans, pressing a palm against his eyes.

He dips his head to kiss him briefly, and fumbles with Sidney’s belt until it’s undone, unzipping his jeans and tugging until they’re past his knees. Sidney kicks his legs a little bit, grunting until he manages to kick them off entirely.

Evgeni pulls off his own undershirt and flings it across the room, and then scoots backwards on the bed, and tucks his fingers into Sidney’s tented boxer briefs, glancing up once more to make sure Sidney hasn’t changed his mind.

Sidney nods at him, then bites his lip and says: “Don’t tease.”

Evgeni ducks his head to press a kiss against the skin of Sidney’s hip, revealed as he peels the briefs down the curve of his ass, and halfway down his thighs.

“Won’t, Sid,” he promises softly, and doesn’t, wrapping his hand around the base of Sidney’s cock, and taking the head in his mouth, sucking hard enough that Sidney moans above him, his fingers spasming in the sheets.

+  
  
Afterwards, Evgeni lies on his back with Sidney half draped on top of him, running his hand in sleepy arcs across his sweaty back. Sidney’s right hand is messy with come, and he’s been making noises about getting up and showering for the past five minutes, but hasn’t actually moved. In fact, he seems to be getting more pliant the longer Evgeni rubs his back.

Sidney’s stomach rumbles eventually, surprisingly loudly in the peaceful quiet of the bedroom, and Evgeni laughs at the face he makes.

“I should probably eat something,” he mutters, rolling off of Evgeni. “Are you hungry?”

“Promise me Italian,” Evgeni reminds him, and Sidney smiles, and biting his lip when Evgeni stretches and then gets out of bed, showing off a little.

“We can have Italian,” he says, pulling open his closet and disappearing inside. “There’s a good place nearby that’s open late, and they’ll deliver.” He sticks his head back out of the closet. “I don’t know if I have any sweatpants that’ll fit you.”

Evgeni shrugs, and pulls on his boxers. “I stay like this,” he tells Sidney, who shrugs, and disappears again, coming out a moment later in a clean t-shirt and soft-looking sweatpants. He stares appreciatively at Evgeni, until Evgeni’s stomach rumbles.

“Italian, Sid,” Evgeni says, rubbing his stomach and pouting. “You promise.”

“You’re the one who distracted me,” Sidney says, turning neatly on his heel and heading out of the bedroom.

“You distract first,” Evgeni says, grinning as he follows Sidney downstairs, and takes a seat at the kitchen island beside the carved cantaloupe. “You jealous of table.”

Sidney turns red around the ears, and busies himself with his phone, tapping around on it and ordering for both of them without asking Evgeni’s opinion.

Evgeni snoops around Sidney’s kitchen while he orders, pulling open a cupboard to poke through a vast array of protein powder, before abandoning it to look through a shelf full of cookbooks.

His fridge is well-stocked, and his freezer is full of cuts of meat, and Evgeni is poking through a drawer full of odds and ends when Sidney hangs up and wraps his arms around Evgeni’s waist, drawing him away from his study of a bottle opener in the shape of a penguin.

“You are so nosy,” he says, pressing his forehead against Evgeni’s back. He leaves a sweet kiss between his shoulder blades and then leads him by the hand into the den, where he flips on the television and slumps into the couch, dragging Evgeni with him.

Sidney’s ordered them both chicken parm, and he turns the volume on the hockey game he’d flipped to down low while Evgeni tells him about his conversation with Rozina, relating the story in between bites of chicken and pasta, licking tomato sauce from his lips as he talks.

“I’m tell her I write any recommendation she want,” he says, frowning. “She good student, good kid. Want her to succeed.”

Across the couch from him, Sidney is digging slivers of roasted garlic out of the side order of steamed spinach he’d commandeered. “You’d be a good captain,” he says absently, frowning down at his food.

Something warm and fond blooms in Evgeni’s chest, and he stretches out his leg to kick Sidney in the ankle. He looks up at that, away from his garlic, and smiles at Evgeni with a mouth full of spinach.

“I was thinking that you should come to our Thanksgiving skate,” Sidney says, once he’s chewed and swallowed. “You can meet the team, and I can see you skate. I really... I really want to see you skate.”

“I’m best,” Evgeni tells him confidently, and Sidney laughs.

“Is that a yes?” He looks a little nervous, and Evgeni throws a crumpled napkin at him.

“Yes, is yes. I come skate with team, show them who best.”

“If you’re as good as you say you are, we may never let you leave,” Sidney teases. He wraps a warm hand around Evgeni’s bare ankle and strokes, which is just cheating.

“What students do without me?” Evgeni asks, putting the container he’s been eating out of down and leaning forward, into Sidney’s space. “Only learn American history, nothing about Russia. Nothing about rest of the world. Very sad. Not get into college.”

Sidney hums, and takes a last bite of spinach before tossing the empty takeout containers onto the coffee table. He tastes like garlic when he kisses Evgeni, despite his best efforts, and Evgeni licks deeper into his mouth, chasing the taste.

“Upstairs, upstairs, come on,” Sidney mumbles against Evgeni’s mouth, and he drags Evgeni off the couch.

+

Evgeni typically spends Thanksgiving home alone, eating an exorbitant amount of Chinese takeout in front of the television and watching the parade, the Westminster dog show, and the football game, one right after the other.

This year though, he showers and puts on his favorite, softest sweater, and meets Sidney in the PPG Paints Arena parking lot. Sidney is standing beside his car, drumming his fingers nervously against his thighs, which look spectacular in the dark grey jeans he’s wearing.

Okay, Sid?” Evgeni asks, shoving his keys in a pocket and cupping a quick hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Sidney says, nodding tightly. “I’m just… I’m a little nervous, it’s fine.”

“Can go,” Evgeni says softly, trying to keep the hurt out of his voice.

“No,” Sidney says, and he glances around the mostly empty parking lot before grabbing tightly at Evgeni’s hand. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

Sidney holds Evgeni’s hand all the way into the arena, waving at the security guard at the door with his free hand and pausing to ask after her wife and kids. She gives them a warm smile when they walk on, and Evgeni makes sure to wish her a very happy Thanksgiving.

Sidney seems to regain his courage the further they get into the arena. It’s been closed to the public, and is calm and quiet, and only a little intimidating with Sidney at his side.

Sidney is on the walls too, endless photos of him and the other Penguins staring down at them as they walk, and Sidney rolls his eyes and tugs him through a door when Evgeni teases him gently.

“Oh,” he says, stopping short just before they get into the locker room, which is packed already, by the sound of it. “When in doubt, assume that they’re all full of shit.”

Evgeni gives him a Jagr salute, and Sidney mutters darkly under his breath and leads him inside.    

It’s bright and and a little smelly in the locker room, full of wives and cute kids.

Sidney’s team behaves for approximately two minutes, as Sidney introduces Evgeni around the room, and then someone chortles and says: “Hot for teacher, eh?”

It’s Pascal Dupuis, and Sidney turns an impressively stormy Captain-face on him, that makes Evgeni laugh.

Sidney hustles him away from Dupuis to an empty stall, snapping something in stilted French over his shoulder as they go. There’s an empty stall across the room, and Evgeni meets Chris Kunitz and his wife, daughters, and son, and falls into easy conversation with them while Sidney hovers and checks the skate laces of every child in his vicinity.

He badgers Evgeni into getting out his own skates, eventually, and then takes them from him, thumbs at the blades, and says: “I’ll be right back.”

Evgeni blinks after him as he disappears through a door leading out of the locker room – to the showers or trainers, or somewhere else entirely.

“He’s probably taking them to get sharpened,” someone says, and Evgeni turns to find Pascal Dupuis settling into the spot Sidney had been sitting in.

He’s holding a little girl with a lopsided braid in one arm, and he settles her carefully in his lap before covering her ears with both hands and saying lightly: “You break that boy’s heart, and I will come for and destroy everything you love.”

His daughter wriggles in his lap and he smiles placidly down at her, removing his hands from her ears. “Got it?” He asks, and picks her up again and wanders off before Sidney returns, holding Evgeni’s skates, and a stick.

“I got them sharpened,” Sidney says, handing the skates over, narrowing his eyes at Evgeni and then Dupuis. “Was Duper bothering you?”

“He not scary,” Evgeni says, checking the edges on his skates with an appreciative thumbnail.

“Was he _threatening_ you?” Sidney asks, frowning deeply, and Evgeni squeezes his thigh.

“Come skate, Sid,” he says. “I’m show you best.”

He’s brought his own stick and gloves, both a little worn but perfectly serviceable, and follows Sidney down the hallway out to the ice, admiring the view as they go.

“Really good jeans, Sid,” he says, swatting Sidney on the ass with his stick as they step out onto the freshly cleared ice. “Ass look really good.”

Sidney squeaks a little and lunges for him, gaping and quickly forgetting his anger when Evgeni pivots and pushes hard on one edge, skating away with long, lazy strokes. He cuts to the right just as Sidney catches up with him, faster than anticipated, and laughs out loud at Sidney’s quiet huff of displeasure, accelerating while Sidney chases him, and coming to a hard stop at the other end of the rink.

Sidney slides to a stop in front of him, and tugs a puck from his pocket. He catches it easily on the blade of his stick, and flips it up into the air, grunting when Evgeni snatches it in his glove and drops it to the ice.

“Let’s go,” he says, and back checks Sidney gently, cupping the puck with his stick and using his height and the width of his shoulders to shield it from Sidney, grinning broadly while Sidney huffs and swears and does his best to shoulder Evgeni out of the way.

He fakes to the right and darts left, whooping and streaking up the ice with the puck while Sidney swears loudly and chases after him. 

Sidney steals the puck from him eventually, taking it right from between his legs with a move that shouldn’t be possible, and a smug grin.

“Geno!” He says, when they pull up in front of the bench, after nearly running over one of the rookies’ girlfriends. He’s breathing hard, his face pink from exertion, and he looks _delighted_. “Geno, you’re really good!”

Evgeni sticks his tongue out, leaning his weight on his stick as he pants to catch his breath. “Doubt me?” He teases. “Am Russian. Hockey in blood.”

Sidney rolls his eyes and flips the puck back up onto the flat of his stick.

“Are you two done with your mating ritual?” Pascal Dupuis asks, as he steps onto the bench fairly dripping in children. “Here,” he says, handing one of his daughters off to Sidney, and Sidney amiably hands his stick and the puck over to Evgeni, and lets the little girl believe that she’s towing him around the rink.

Evgeni watches him go fondly, and carefully places their sticks side by side in a spot where they won’t get knocked over. Dupuis is watching him when he turns around, a considering look on his face.

“This is Lola,” he says, finally, introducing Evgeni to the small girl he’d brought over earlier, when he was threatening him in the locker room. “She only goes around the rink counter-clockwise.”

“I’m a lion,” she tells Evgeni seriously, and he nods back at her equally seriously, and checks her tiny skates before lifting her down to the ice, where she proceeds to direct them both around the rink in a series of increasingly complicated patterns until Sidney comes to collect them for lunch and laugh at them.  

+

In early December, Sidney nets a hat trick in Florida. Evgeni watches the hats rain down on the choppy Florida ice, and swallows dryly when the cameras zoom in on Sidney’s smug, self-satisfied smile.

He hustles Tanger out of his apartment as soon as the game is over, and paces his kitchen, stumbling over Kazimir once or twice, until his phone rings.

Sidney looks flushed on FaceTime, just out of the shower and back in his game-day suit. The picture is a little wobbly, jolting up and down as he strides through the back passages of the arena, probably out to the bus to the plane that will take them home.

“ _Sid_ ,” Evgeni says, too overcome to even be embarrassed about the way his voice is clouded with emotion. Sidney slows, and smiles directly into his phone.

“Good game, eh?” He asks, and his lopsided grin is so pleased, Evgeni needs to take a deep breath. He feels like he might burst out of his skin with pride.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he says, closing his eyes as the words leave his mouth. “Ya tebya lyublyu, Sidney.”

“You still haven’t taught me Russian, you know I don’t know what that means,” Sidney whines. He pouts a little at the phone, and Evgeni rolls his eyes, unbearably fond.

“Means love, Sid,” he says, smiling when Sidney stumbles over nothing. “Love you.”

“Oh.” Sidney says, and he stops walking, staring his phone. “Yeah. I. I mean. Me too, Geno. Me too.” He coughs nervously, and Evgeni leans closer, delighted by the way he can see Sid’s blush even through the phone.

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Evgeni repeats, and then he leans in with a wicked grin. “Sorry I’m not there to give you hat trick blow job.”

“Geno!” Sidney splutters. “Shut up – I don’t… what if someone hears?”

“Then they know you lucky. Luckiest.”

“I’m going to hang up now,” Sidney tells him. “Good bye.”

“I suck your dick when you back in Pittsburgh,” Evgeni says as loudly as he can.

“Geno!” Sidney hisses, and Evgeni laughs.

“You like,” he says, and Sidney blusters at him for a moment.

“I’m going now! Goodbye.”

“Ya tebya lyublyu,” Evgeni says, and Sidney turns even redder than he was before.

“You too,” he says, cracks a small grin, and ends the call.

 _Everyone wants to know why I’m so red,_ Sidney texts ten minutes later. _You’re the worst._

 _you love_ , Evgeni texts back, grinning.

 _Yes_. Sidney sends, and then: _I don’t love everyone thinking I had phone sex before getting on the bus_.

 _you want phone sex?_ Evgeni texts, sitting straight up from where he’s slumped on the couch. The cat hisses and streaks off beneath the coffee table.

 _NO_.

 _i send you pictures_ , he texts anyway, tugging his shirt off with one hand.

 _NO_. Sidney sends again, and then, five minutes later: _Maybe just one?_

+

Sidney gets six whole days off after Christmas, and they spend most of the first two in Evgeni’s apartment, eating takeout and having sex, luxuriating in the hours of free time.

Evgeni’s midget league team plays an annual New Years’ game on the 30th, and he makes the mistake of telling Sidney when they wake up on the Friday morning before the game, limbs tangled and warm.  

“Geno! That’s so great.” Sidney says. “I’ll come with you to practice.” He’s beaming at Evgeni, just glowing at him, the sheets pooled around his waist, and Evgeni is helpless to do anything but smile back at him.

He stands up, unselfconsciously naked, and Geno clears his throat and averts his eyes as Sidney bends over and tugs his underwear and t-shirt out from the mess of the duvet that had fallen off the end of the bed the night before.

“Sid, no.” He says finally, and Sidney pauses, his boxers on, and his t-shirt half over head already. “You distract. People ask questions. We end up in news.”

Sid makes a face. “I don’t care,” he says stubbornly, pulling his t-shirt down over his chest, and searching in the mess of blankets for his jeans.

“We finally have time off, and I want to spend it with you. I don’t care if we end up in the news, I want to see you coaching the kids. I want to help.”

“Okay, Sid, okay,” Evgeni says, and he steps close to draw his hands around the soft skin at Sid’s waist, up his spine, around the nape of his neck. “Can come with. But no distracting. Big game, you know? We have to win, can’t win if spend all time staring at Sidney Crosby.”

“That’s not!” Sidney splutters. “That’s not going to happen!”

It is definitely going to happen, and Evgeni rolls his eyes while Sid pulls his jeans on huffily, and goes to make them breakfast.

He drives them to the rink, and despite the baseball cap Sid’s pulled low over his face, he ends up in the middle of a pile of children almost immediately, while Geno sighs and sits on the boards beside the bench, waiting for the kids to work it out of their systems.

Beside him, Malaika Otunye, a volunteer EMT who checks over bumps and bruises at practice, and is the mother of their over-excitable goalie Obasi, wraps a warm hand around his shoulder.

“Geno, this is such a nice surprise for the kids,” she says, and then laughs when her son careens into Sidney’s knees and falls over. Across the rink, Sidney laughs and scoops Obasi up, setting him on his feet and checking his tiny goalie pads over, before giving him a gentle fist bump.

“Not my idea,” Evgeni says, shrugging, but she just squeezes his shoulder again, like she doesn’t believe him.  

“Okay!” He shouts finally, rapping his stick against the ice and skating over to the excited scrum of children. “We start practice now, leave Sidney Crosby alone.”

Sidney muffles a laugh in his glove, and then makes a show of standing to attention when Evgeni glares at him. At his side, the kids follow his example, and Evgeni gets practice underway, assigning Sidney the role of goalie coach, just to get him out of his line of sight.

Sidney thwacks him lightly on the ass with his stick as he skates a delighted Obasi to one end of the rink, where he sends puck after puck in his direction, slow and easy, straight to his blocker, and cheers each time Obasi makes a save.

Evgeni stages a scrimmage for the last fifteen minutes of practice, and lets the kids talk him and Sidney into taking on the roles of opposing centers.

They get Malaika to drop the puck for them, and Sidney smirks at him and says salacious things in Russian and _cheats_ , and his team only loses because Evgeni scores a hat trick while Sidney is distracted by chasing Obasi down and carrying him back to his goal.

The end of the game quickly dissolves into chaos after that. Evgeni stands beside Sidney, leaning on their sticks and watching the laughing, shrieking mass of children play a hockey game that has evolved to become tag, with four chasers and a goalie.

“Something to look forward to, eh?” Sidney asks softly, knocking their shoulders together.

“Future, yes,” Evgeni says, and steals the puck Sidney’s been flicking absent-mindedly back and forth between his skate blade and stick.


End file.
